“So Much for Protect and Serve”: Queer Male Survivors’ Perceptions of Negative Police Experiences

• Author: Doug Meyer
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1043986219894430
• Subject Matter: Articles

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ournal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeMeyer research-article2019 Article Jour
nal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 2020, Vol. 36(2) 228 –250 “So Much for Protect and
© The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: Serve”: Queer Male Survivors’ sa
gepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986219894430 DOI: 1
0.1177/1043986219894430 journals.sagepub.com/home/ccj Perceptions of Negative Police
Experiences Doug Meyer1 AbstractThe author employs a critical queer criminology ap
proach to examine the negative reporting experiences of queer men who have been sex
ually assaulted. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews, findings reveal that que
er men of color’s perceptions differed based on gender expression with thos
e participants who did not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming
expressing surprise that police officers had disparaged their sexuality. Moreove
r, White participants differed based on age, as younger
White qu
eer men expected the police to provide support, whereas their older counterparts were
not surpr
ised by the negative police response. These findings have implications for theorizi
ng the intersections of gender and sexuality with race and age, given that results in
dicate younger White queer men may now increasingly perceive the police as providing
protection. In contrast, gender-nonconforming
queer men of color des
cribed continual profiling experiences based on their gender presentation and their racial identity.
Keywordssexual assault, queer criminolog
y, intersectionality theo
r

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y, raci
al p
rofiling, police brutality Scholarship focusing on queer men who have been sexually a
ssaulted has frequently drawn attention to their negative experiences with the pol
ice (Jackson et al., 2017; Javaid, 2018b; Rumney, 2008). In this article, I use “queer”
as an umbrella term for 1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA Correspond
ing Author:Doug Meyer, Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality, University of Virg
inia, Levering Hall, P.O. Box 400172, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. Email: dom6e@virg
inia.edu Meyer 229 sexual minorities, which includes anyone who does not identify a
s heterosexual, and examine the perceptions of 21 queer men who had negative police ex
periences after reporting a sexual assault. In one of the earlier studies on this to
pic, Abdullah-Khan (2008) found that “many officers are unsympathetic and do not ta
ke male rape seri-ously” (p. 134), whereas Rumney’s (2009) review of this literature
indicated that “some police officers and other criminal justice professionals appear t
o attach to gay men or those they perceive as gay highly questionable assumptions reg
arding credibil-ity, trauma, and truthfulness” (p. 238). More recent work has similarly reve
aled that some police officers position queer men’s sexual assault experiences as cons
ensual, often blaming them for the violence and drawing on stereotypical understandi
ngs of gay and bisexual men as sexually promiscuous (Jackson et al., 2017; Javaid
, 2018a). In this regard, Javaid’s (2018b) research based on interviews and qualit
ative question-naires involving police officers has pointed to how “gay male r
ape victims are often seen as having ‘asked for it’ and are, the
refore, blamed for their rape” (p. 762). Overall, this line of scholarship indicates t
hat queer men share some similar experiences with other survivors in their reportin
g to the police, as other groups such as women and heterosexual men also face vi
ctim-blaming responses; at the same time, queer men appear to experience some negative
reactions unique to their own social position, informed by overlapping gender and sexual
ity norms (Anderson & Doherty, 2008; Bernstein & Kostelac, 2002; Gregory & Lees, 1999;
Javaid, 2015). Although this research has provided significant insights into the wa
ys that societal prejudice structures police responses toward gay and bisexual men, l
ittle remains known regarding differences among this group of men (Dunn, 2012; Lowe & Roge
rs, 2017; Tillapaugh, 2017). For instance, this line of scholarship has yet to explore
how queer male survivors differ based on race or age in their reporting experiences (G
arvey et al., 2017; Hlavka, 2017; Ralston, 2012). Conversely, I focus on age and intra
racial differences among
queer male survivors’ perceptions, drawing on qualitative, inter-view-based research c
onducted with 60 queer men in the United States. In total, 23 of the 60 respondents
reported an experience of sexual assault to the police; all 23 partici-pants reporte
d only one experience and the vast majority (21) characterized the police respons
e as negative. This article focuses on these 21 respondents with negative expe-rience
s, revealing intraracial differences within the categories of “white queer men” and “que
er men of color.” Research on the effects of race has typically examined interracial
differences, as a substantial amount of scholarship has shown, for example, that B
lack men fear and expect less supportive responses from the police than White men (B
raga et al., 2019; Brunson, 2007; Epp et al., 2014). Although studies focusing on these i
nterracial dynamics remain important, exploring intraracial differ
e

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nces
is also necessary given that a growing body of
scholarship indicates significant variation within racial groups (Gibson & Nelson
, 2018; Unnever et al., 2019; Wheelock et al., 2019). Here, findings reveal complex di
fferences among queer men of color based on gender expression and among White queer
men based on age. Focusing on intraracial variation, this article details the potent
ial implications of such results for the emerging field of queer crimi-nology (Buist & L
enning, 2016; Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Woods, 2014). 230 Journal of Contemporary
Criminal Justice 36(2) Building on scholarship that has explored the role of race i
n men’s experiences with the police, I argue for a critical criminology approach th
at considers intersec-tions of race and age with gender and sexuality (Brunson, 2007
; Epp et al., 2014). Critical criminology, a theoretical perspective concerned with
understanding and cri-tiquing the ways in which the criminal-legal system reinforces
social inequalities, has increasingly been employed in studies involving queer p
opulations (Ball, 2016b; Buist & Lenning, 2016; Dalton, 2016). At the same time, some
research in this area has noted the degree to which intersectionality—a theoretic
al orientation that exam-ines the overlap of power structures such as race, class,
gender, and sexuality—has often not been employed in this scholarship, despite some
notable exceptions (Ball, 2016a; Panfil, 2017; Ritchie, 2013). Intersectionality i
nvolves a critical approach toward systems of oppression, such as heteronormativity o
r institutional racism, exploring their overlap rather than treating them as separate
and independent of one another (Crenshaw, 1991; Potter, 2015; Taylor, 2016). Importan
t bodies of scholar-ship in queer cri
minology and intersectional feminist criminology have developed, yet here I build on th
eir overlap, arguing that criminological work on queer popula-tions would benefit f
rom incorporating more intersectional analyses (Buist et al., 2018; Ralston, 2012). I
ndeed, this research reveals that examining queer criminologi-cal topics through
an intersectional lens can add more nuance to our understanding of these topics by demon
strating the multifaceted ways that power structures shape indi-viduals’ experiences a
nd perceptions. Although studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex,
and asexual (LGBTQIA) people’s experiences in correctional settings have become a subst
antial body of scholarship, research in queer criminology has frequently pointed to th
e mar-ginalization of LGBTQIA issues from dominant criminal justice frameworks (Ball
, 2016a; Panfil, 2017; Woods, 2014). In this regard, prevailing criminological approac
hes, despite some noteworthy examples to the contrary, have typically explored issues s
uch as police brutality and racial profiling without considering gender and sexual
ity (Dwyer, 2011; Meyer, 2015; Mogul et al., 2011; Ritchie, 2013). Still, considerable
evidence sug-
gests that LGBTQIA people of color experience disproportionately high rates of po
lice harassment, particularly those who are transgender or gender-nonconforming (Buist &
Stone, 2014; Gibson, 2011; Spade, 2015; Stotzer, 2014). Consequently, this more criti-cal
area of research has argued for a “queering” of traditional criminological scho
lar-ship, in which gender and sexuality, in addition to race and social class, becom
e understood as central to theorizing on the criminal-legal system (Buist et al.
, 2018; Dalton, 2016). This growing body of research in queer criminology has pr
ovided important under- standings of how racial inequities intersect with heter
o

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normati
vity
, yet less is known in terms of how these intersections operate in the context of policing
and sexual assault (Hlavka, 2017; Javaid, 2015; Weiss, 2010). While White queer men
have generally been privileged in LGBTQIA advocacy work and scholarship, studies of se
xual assault have more frequently focused on women survivors, which has tended to l
eave unex-plored the experiences of groups such as queer men (Abdullah-Khan, 2008; Cohe
n, 2014; Lowe & Rogers, 2017). Furthermore, queer men of color have not typically
Meyer 231 featured centrally in the literature on sexual assault, as some work has poin
ted to...